This a review of the first of a three-part series on Advancing Women Worldwide.  It is offered by Korn Ferry, known for their executive recruitment, leadership and talent consulting services.

As a number of my readers are interested in the subject of career development, I try to review a variety of webinars.  This one focuses on supporting women to succeed in leadership positions.

Before you continue I ask you to consider some of these questions:

1. Do you think that women have already achieved parity in the promotions game.  “Why are we still talking about this?”
2. Are women well represented in your field of work, in your profession and in your company?  Is that well represented, or equally represented?
3. Are the visible women in leadership position there because they have  taken on the characteristics of the males in leadership positions around them?  Or are they in those positions because they lead well in their own native style?
4. Do women get punished if they behave like men?

The first of a three-part complimentary series that is part of their Women in Leadership offering, this webinar was targeted towards HR departments and discussed all these topics and more, concentrating on tactics that the organizations themselves could implement.

What Organizations can do

This topic must resonate, as over 500 people worldwide dialed into the webinar!  I will summarize, and look forward to a healthy discussion from all of you!  I  hope to do the slides and material justice.  The 60 minutes sped by with a choice of really good material!  So much good stuff, interesting stats and important vocabulary to choose from.

I really recommend watching the presentation yourself, and getting informed.

The 3 presenters were Korn Ferry specialists Peggy Hazard, Audra Bohannon and Peter Ambrozaitis.  They focused on a few topics:

1. Why is the needle still stuck on advancing women worldwide
2. Essential, but missing levers of change
3. The specific high impact actions that organizations can take to implement change.

Why is the needle stuck on advancing women into leadership?

As a professional woman, I pay attention to the trends around me.  This presentation offered me the perspective from a professional team who focus specifically on Resource & Talent Optimization issues.  Their perspective echoed the frustration in the current stall – the lack of momentum in levelling the playing field.  They have decades of statistics and have created models that track progress – and then they are able to use those same numbers to help drive management teams to make changes.

What got you here won’t get you there

As with all great solutions to BIG problems, we all start with the low hanging fruit.  Many organizations started to redress the issue by creating targeted recruiting, specialized resource groups and mentoring circles.  While this got the ball rolling and had significant impact on increasing the number of women in the workforce, it has not resolved a natural path of having more women automatically being promoted into visible leadership positions (see slide 15).

It appears that organizations now have to consider how they incorporate diversity in their leadership teams.  It may be that the criteria that promotion panels have historically used may be causing them to overlooking potential candidates across the diversity spectrum.  The spotlight on getting more women in to leadership positions has just served to highlight the opportunity to reconsider the whole process and evaluation criteria.

Women in Go-To roles

• Women are getting stuck at certain levels or functions

• Women are in ‘Go To’ Roles.  “Do Go Tos get promoted?  No, because if Go Tos get promoted, then who do we Go To?”

• Slide 5 was wonderful in describing why there is such a focus on developing female talent today.   I believe that most of these issues were the same as they were 20 years ago.  The reality today is more females than males are graduating.
• If the promotion panels do not do the work to revisit the criteria they employ in identifying strong leadership talent, they may be ignoring talent and diversity in half their workforce – equivalent to leaving money on the table.
• It is clear that when diversity initiatives are handled purely for the purpose of hitting a target as opposed to wanting to change the culture, the organization does not benefit from all the efforts.

A new vocabulary

From my work in Strategic Planning, I have always been a proponent of working with a ‘common vocabulary’ when dealing with change, to ensure that all the players use the same meaning and have the same expectations of the same words.

Korn Ferry introduced some new phrases that were very well-selected.  When they used them, the word resonated, and I felt a visceral impact!

Headwinds & Vectors

This weekend, I drove I90 East from Buffalo to Albany.  I was headed into the west-facing headwinds that were the by-product of Hurricane Joaquin.  The journey took an hour longer than Google had estimated.  With those headwinds behind us on the return journey – effectively becoming a tailwind, we picked up a half hour lead time on Google’s ETA.

Nothing could have more dramatically shown the effect of a ‘headwind’.

Korn Ferry use the phrase ‘headwind’ to describe how women often have to fight an uphill battle to get to the same position as their male peers.  It is these invisible forces and pre-conceptions (external and internal!) that put women behind the 8 ball.  Thought it was only you?  It was interesting reading Indra Nooyi’s comments in the WSJ panel about her battle to be visible.

Vectors are forces with magnitude and direction.   These vectors when managed correctly can redirect the lost energy from leaning into a headwind to creating a more effective and innovate team.  Korn Ferry have identified seven vector groupings including reference groups and cultural norms, which they describe in slide 24.

It is who you know

Anyone who has watched House of Cards will realize that the invisible circle of influence is as crucial to a leadership race as the HR advertised process.  A good connection and sponsorship can really propel you forward.  An absence of the same can sabotage you.  Women need to be assimilated into these mentor circles.

Action Items

This presentation was chock full of ideas.  These are a few strategies that I think I would offer as the most actionable ones to put you in a position of advantage from day ONE whether you are just starting your career as a young professional, or positioning yourself for a leadership run.

• Hit the ground running – In your first 100 days, do not be coy.  Make a specific action plan to position yourself with your manager and all your clients to inform them on what you are bringing to the table to add to the revenue stream.
• When you are in the position – Take responsibility for your own success.  You have to step forward and work with your manager to identify the vectors and discuss the headwinds that are stopping you for working at your optimal level
• Make some good connections – Get on the radar of some key players in your organizations.  Get a Sponsor as well as a Mentor.  Support and be supported by strong role models.
• Do visible work – See slide 36 (min 00:47:35).  Leaders are selected from those who put their hands up to do Visible Important & Complex projects.  Make sure that you have a few of these on your resume.

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Over to you:

} .. This addresses the issues with creating an equality of women in leadership positions.  Should we just establish quotas to solve the problem?

} ..  What is causing today’s young men to eschew a life of further education?  Could we be faced with the reverse situation in another 20 years?  How will the pendulum swing?

INSPIRATION AND RESEARCH MATERIAL FOR THIS BLOG:

• Listen to Advancing Women Worldwide – what organizations can do  This is hosted on the Korn Ferry website.  It first aired on October 1, 2015. It will be aired live in Europe, Middle East & Africa on Oct 13 and Asia Pacific on Oct 21.
• Sign up for sessions 2 & 3 of this series.  They focus on what Managers and Women can do respectively.
• Sheryl Sandberg (COO Facebook and author of Lean In) and Indra Nooyi (CEO of Pepsi) on the WSJ Women in the Workplace panel event.
• Huffington Post “At this rate, it’ll take 100 years to get gender equality at work”
• Thank you to the reader who sent me the link to the Korn Ferry webinar.